Drugs Given Away by AIDS Patients in United States Prolong Lives Worldwide

In developing countries across the globe, HIV/AIDS patients piece together drug cocktails using pills donated from the United States. Some US patients give away their pills after switching medications or taking physician-recommended drug holidays. Friends and family of US HIV/AIDS patients who have died also donate drugs.

Citing fears of tampering, US authorities will not take back unused drugs once they have been prescribed. US law prohibits giving unused medication to individual US citizens, but allows medicine to be donated to designated nonprofit groups for export as humanitarian aid.

New York-based Aid of AIDS and other nonprofits pair US medication donors with people in need. Aid for AIDS doles out recycled medications to 350 patients in 16 countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and the Middle East.

"Donations from 20 to 30 people can provide one year's worth of medicine for one patient," according to George Fesser, the group's director of recycling. "Relying on leftover medication, we don't have a consistent stream. We have little trickles, and it's up to us to create the proper drug regimens for the proper patient."

Dr. James Fitzgerald of the Washington-based Pan American Health Organization said his group works with several organizations that deal in donated drugs, and they have never received a report of the pills doing harm. The World Health Organization, which has guidelines for donated drugs, has not documented any cases of recycled medicine hurting patients.

Some patients in Mexico get their medications from prescription drug smugglers. Unlike drug-recycling groups that guarantee patients always receive the pills they need, those who rely on prescription drug smugglers are at the mercy of drug supplies that often run low. Interrupting drug regimens risks patients' forming resistance to the drugs.

Back to other news for June 10, 2004